Eye For An Eye

Eye For An Eye

An eye for an eye is the principle that a person who has injured another person is penalized to a similar degree, or according to other interpretations the victim receives the value of the injury in compensation. According to Jewish interpretations the victim in criminal law gets financial compensation based on the law of human equality eschewing mutilation and 'lex talionis'.

The English word talion means a retaliation authorized by law, in which the punishment corresponds in kind and degree to the injury, from the Latin talio. The phrase "an eye for an eye" is sometimes trivially referred to using the Latin term lex talionis, the law of talion.

Read more about Eye For An Eye:  Definition and Methods, Antecedents, Abrahamic Traditions, Alternatives, Criticism, Notable Dissenters

Famous quotes containing the word eye:

    Art is a concrete and personal and rather childish thing after all—no matter what people do to graft it into science and make it sociological and psychological; it is no good at all unless it is let alone to be itself—a game of make-believe, or re-production, very exciting and delightful to people who have an ear for it or an eye for it.
    Willa Cather (1873–1947)